It's neighbor against neighbor in Largo community

The possible sale of Palm Hill Country Club bitterly divides residents and incites fear.

By RITA FARLOW, Times Staff Writer
Published August 27, 2007

Resident Ellen Jensen helped negotiate the 99-year lease. Rent is pegged to the value of the land, due to be reappraised in 2010.
	[Jim Damaske | Times]

LARGO - Jean Woolf thought she'd spend the rest of her days at Palm Hill Country Club mobile home park when she settled there in 1984.

But that was before she watched a proposal to sell the park tear her neighbors apart.

Longtime friends stopped speaking to one another. Someone found a note calling for the death of the park's board members. Several people received threatening phone calls.

"It's made it so you don't know which neighbor you can talk to," said Woolf, 73. "I don't really want to stay here with what's happened and what will probably continue to happen."

Now both sides have hired lawyers, and a judge must decide at least one aspect of the battle. Residents on both sides trade accusations of fraud and deceit.

The stakes are high. Residents like Woolf fear that if the park is sold, they would be forced out of their homes.

"I'm alone, my income is limited," Woolf said. "I'm not going to go back out and work at 73."

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Palm Hill, one of Pinellas County's largest mobile home parks, sits on 165 acres north of Ulmerton Road and east of Seminole Boulevard. It includes 1,096 homes and about 1,500 residents.

Through a cooperative agreement, residents own their homes and all the park's improvements, such as the streets, sewer lines, pools and clubhouses. But they lease the land from members of the John S. Taylor family of Largo.

Under a 99-year lease the cooperative signed in 1995, the rent was agreed upon as 8 percent of the land's value at that time, which was $7.85-million.

According to the agreement, the property is appraised every 15 years to determine the cost of the rent. The next appraisal is scheduled for 2010.

Residents said they have long believed it was in their best interest to own the land. But that only became possible within the past year when the Taylors agreed to sell.

The cooperative's board of directors and a little more than half the residents support the sale. They say it will be cheaper to buy the park for the $76-million asking price instead of paying the lease after the property is reappraised.

Residents currently pay $215 a month. If the property is sold, that would increase to $550 per month.

Opponents say the price is too steep and the mortgage's terms too risky, creating a prime opportunity for people to default.

They've asked the board to wait for the 2010 appraisal, when they could try to renegotiate the sale price with the Taylors. The extra time would also allow lower-income residents to make payment arrangements.

* * *

The two sides are at odds over numerous issues, including the value of the land, the percentage of votes needed for the sale to proceed and the tactics used to persuade others.

Proponents of the sale say the Taylors' price is fair and unlikely to drop. Critics say the appraisals vary by tens of millions of dollars, and don't take into account the property residents already own.

Now the battle over how many votes are needed to go forward with the purchase has moved to circuit court.

Originally, residents were told the purchase required a 75 percent yes vote.

When the final tally came in April 3, only 57 percent of residents approved the sale.

But board members, claiming recent legal research showed that only a simple majority of votes was needed, said they intended to go forward with the deal.

In court documents, the board's attorney presented yet another theory. He argued the cooperative's articles of incorporation give the board exclusive power to purchase the land without residents' approval.

Some opponents are questioning why the board held a vote if they didn't need approval from residents.

Attorney Joe Magri, who represents opponents to the sale, said residents feel confused and betrayed because the rules have been altered so many times.

"It's always something new," Magri said. "Imagine how disconcerting that must be, especially to some of the older residents."

But the board's attorney, Joe Gaynor, said it's the opponents who are confusing residents.

"I believe that the people who did not want to go forward with the deal may have had good personal reasons for doing it," Gaynor said.

"But the information they put out to these elderly people was false and misleading."

* * *

While both sides wait for a ruling, the ever-deepening rift has pitted friends and neighbors against one another.

Ellen Jensen, 90, the former board president who helped negotiate the 1995 lease, said the bickering and confusion is stressful.

"Husbands and wives are fighting with each other. It's so unpleasant," said Jensen, who opposes the sale.

"It's very strained, almost like a North-South situation (with) brother against brother," said Carl Graber, 69, a sale supporter.

Palm Hill was a great place to live before the sale was proposed, he said. But that's no longer the case, said Graber, who spends half the year in his home in Long Island, N.Y.

"I'm really not looking forward to going back down there," he said. "It's going to take Palm Hill many years of healing to get rid of the animosity of some of the people."

Rich Long, 75, part of the group contesting the sale and a defendant in the lawsuit, said a good friend stopped speaking to him over the issue.

"I was flabbergasted," Long said. "I saw him in the clubhouse at some function and he wouldn't even say hello to me."

* * *

Bill Stephenson, 73, a board member who oversees security at the park, said he's had to intervene in heated exchanges between residents. On July 30, Stephenson was alerted to threatening notes in the park's clubhouses that read: "Please shoot the Palm Hill board of directors for the good of Palm Hill."

That incident, as well as at least one threatening phone call, has been reported to the Largo Police Department.

Chris Eckhart, 61, who opposes the sale, said the strain is taking a toll on residents.

"You've got people crying themselves to sleep at night. ... A lot of people have become very sick over this. It wears on you," Eckhart said.

There have been several heart attacks and strokes in the park since the argument over buying the land started, Eckhart and others said.

Board member Forrest Stinson, 73, said that's why residents need to stop squabbling and find some common ground on the issue.

"We do need to put things aside, try to get things resolved and try to get the park back to where it used to be because it is torn apart right now," Stinson said. "There's been a lot of rhetoric and we need to overlook it, no matter the outcome."

[Last modified August 26, 2007, 20:29:31]